I’m also deeply indebted to my agent, Daniel Greenberg, who brought up the subject of Dazed with me over lunch many years ago, and to my editor, Jennifer Barth at Harper, who oversaw the whole project with great patience and enthusiasm and encouraged me to make some crucial changes. Many thanks to everyone at Harper who helped make this book better—assistant editor Sarah Ried, creative director Leah Carlson-Stanisic, production editor Nate Knaebel, assistant general counsel Trina Hunn, and senior designer Caroline Johnson—and also to copyeditor Michael O’Connor and the illustrator Carolyn Figel, whose art appears on the cover. I’m also grateful to the Harper team who supported the book from acquisition through publication: Jonathan Burnham, Doug Jones, Leah Wasielewski, Katie O’Callaghan, and Rachel Elinksy.
I’m especially appreciative of everyone who agreed to comment for the book, whether they simply emailed me a quote, or spent long hours fielding very specific questions about things that happened nearly 30 years ago. This includes Sandra Adair, Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck, Wes Anderson, Gary Arnold, Autumn Barr, Chris Barton, Marjorie Baumgarten, Rodney Becker, Charles Ramírez Berg, Burt Berman, Robb Bindler, Louis Black, Rob Brakey, Mark Brazill, Rick Broussard, Lisa Bruna, Andrew Bujalski, Jonathan Burkhart, John Cameron, Peter Carlson, Jeffrey Charbonneau, Priscilla Kinser-Craft, Jay Clements, Rory Cochrane, Shavonne Conroy, Kahane Cooperman, Douglas Coupland, Sloane Crosley, Jenny Day, Bill Daniel, Sean Daniel, Brett Davis, Valerie DeKeyser, Deena Martin-DeLucia, Scott Dinger, Don Dollar, Katherine Dover, Erika Geminder Drake, Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass, Jesse James Dupree, Roger Earl, Cecil Evans, Greg Finton, Keith Fletcher, Melanie Fletcher, Thomas Flight, Richard “Pink” Floyd, Heyd Fontenot, Jeremy Fox, Kim France, John Frick, Sheri Galloway, Harry Garfield, Holly Gent, Owen Gleiberman, Mike Goins, Adam Goldberg, Chrisse Harnos, Roderick Hart, Samantha Hart, Cole Hauser, Ethan Hawke, Lydia Headley, J.R. Helton, Terry Hoage, Tracey Holman, Don Howard, Steven Hyden, Nina Jacobson, Robert Janecka, Katy Jelski, Sasha Jenson, David T. Johnson, Tom Junod, Nicky Katt, Jeffrey Kerr, Christin Hinojosa-Kirschenbaum, Eric Kops, Kim Krizan, Julie Irvine Labauve, Sam Lawrence, Jason Lee, Tricia Linklater, Jason London, Alison Macor, Michael MacCambridge, Matthew McConaughey, Peter Millius, Kari Jones Mitchell, Catherine Avril Morris, Christopher Morris, Chale Nafus, Kelly Nelson, Lonnie Nelson, Justin O’Baugh, Tony Olm, Tommy Pallotta, Vince Palmo, Deb Pastor, John Pease, Kari Perkins, Don Phillips, Keith Pickford, John Pierson, Tom Pollock, Parker Posey, Esteban Powell, Gary Price, Brian Raftery, Anthony Rapp, Jason Reitman, Marissa Ribisi, Mike Riley, Shana Scott, Jason Davids Scott, Russell Schwartz, Greg Sims, John Slate, Andy Slater, Kevin Smith, Frances Robinson Snipes, Steven Soderbergh, Kal Spelletich, Don Stroud, John Swasey, Teresa Taylor, Michelle Burke Thomas, Peter Travers, Heidi Van Horne, Mark Vandermeulen, Deenie Wallace, Leslie Warren, Don Watson, Scott Wheeler, Wiley Wiggins, Monnie Wills, Bill Wise, Bob Wooderson, Linden Wooderson, Stephanie Zacherek, David Zellner, Nathan Zellner, and Renée Zellweger. A few of these people did not end up in the book, for reasons that had nothing to do with them, but I can promise you that all of them were highly quotable.
A special thanks to everyone who helped me with my research and shared their private letters, memos, yearbooks, photos, and interview tapes, including Joey Lauren Adams, Sandra Adair, Autumn Barr, Gary Arnold, Michelle Burke Thomas, Jonathan Burkhart, Erika Geminder Drake, Nicky Katt, Jason London, Richard Linklater, Chale Nafus, Brian Raftery, Anthony Rapp, Kari Jones Mitchell, Heidi Van Horne, and Wiley Wiggins. Amy Epperson helped me retouch photos I’d previously thought were ruined. Kirsten McMurray and Arielle Slatus helped me access Linklater’s archives at Detour Filmproduction. Brett Davis, Don Dollar, Lisa Dreyer, Jeff Giles, Britt Hennemuth, Gregg Kilday, Eric Kops, Greg Korte, Jesse Lochs, Lian Lunson, Danielle Nussbaum, Cheryl Pollack, Eli Saslow, Liana Satenstein, and Jason Davids Scott helped me track down sources. John Spong suggested I contact the Witliff Collection, where Katie Salzmann, Stephanie Forsythe, and Lauren Goodley helped me pore over transcripts of Spong’s interviews with Dazed cast and crew. Special credit is due to Spong, who wrote “The Spirit of ’76,” a short but fantastic oral history of Dazed and Confused that ran in Texas Monthly in 2003. Reading it made me wonder if there were enough untold stories for a much longer book.
My first reader on many drafts of this book was Rob Tannenbaum. His feedback improved everything about it, including the structure, the introductions, the chapter titles, and my general mood. Rex Sorgatz also took the time to read an almost-done version, sent it back with some really illuminating notes, and totally understood the book.
While I was working on this book, so many people gave me good ideas and good advice. Thank you Diana Bormuth, Keith Bormuth (who took my author photo), Laura Cooke, Mike Dawson, Michelle Dozois, Nathaniel Friedman, Lizzy Goodman, Sean Howe, Katherine Kendall, Maris Kreizman, Christine Maerz, Jennifer Maerz, Michael Maerz, Julie Perini, Jenny Raftery, Sophie Rai, Phoebe Reilly, Kerry Sparks, Rick Sparks, Denice Thomsen, and Mat Sletten. And thank you to my husband, Chuck Klosterman, for encouraging me to quit my day job, taking the kids to the playground when I needed to work, and discussing this book endlessly with me at times when he probably just wanted to watch TV. Having long talks with him—about Dazed or anything else—will always be my most favorite thing to do.
Notes
Introduction: If I Ever Start Referring to These as the Best Years of My Life, Remind Me to Kill Myself
“Everything went up in flames”: Tom Shone, “Richard Linklater’s Nine-Year Itch: The Before Midnight Director on Revisiting (and Revising) the Past,” Vulture, May 11, 2013, https://www.vulture.com/2013/05/richard-linklaters-nine-year-itch.html.
Chapter 1: Oh My God, This Movie Is My Life!
“My whole working premise was that nothing really changes”: “Director’s Commentary.” Dazed and Confused, directed by Richard Linklater, Disc 1, Criterion Collection, 2006. DVD.
Chapter 2: Old People in Your Face, Fucking with Who You Are
“It’s as if a 17-year-old was making this movie”: “Linklater before Shooting.” Dazed and Confused, directed by Richard Linklater, Disc 2, Criterion Collection, 2006. DVD.
Chapter 3: The Hardest Working Slackers in Austin
“set a tone for the rest of my 20s”: Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert, “A Conversation with Richard Linklater,” Reverse Shot, July 2, 2004.
“The ’80s were a great time to be underground”: Pat Blashill (Introduction by Richard Linklater), Texas Is the Reason: The Mavericks of Lonestar Punk (Brooklyn, Bazillion Points, 2020).
“Slacker is a work of divine flakiness”: Hal Hinson, Slacker review, Washington Post, August 23, 1991.
“In a sense, we were all slackers”: Richard Linklater, Slacker (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 14.
Chapter 4: How to Pitch an Unpitchable Movie
“the big bang of the modern indie film movement”: Peter Biskind, Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 53.
“I didn’t even know how to put the tray up”: “Making Dazed.” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
“Jim looks the exact opposite . . .”: Richard Linklater, “Dazed by Days,” Austin Chronicle, September 24, 1993.
Chapter 5: Don’t Lead with Your Ego
“I think our hope was that one of us”: Alison Macor, Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: Thirty Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas (Austin: UT Press, 2010), 96.
“fucking sellout”: Ibid., 154.
“To me we were so much more of a team”: Ibid.
Chapter 6: A Truffle Pig for Talent
“There’s no way there’s not tons of interesting young actors”: Linklater, “Dazed by Days.”
Chapter 9: Maybe the ’70s Didn’t Suck?
“You want me to tell you what’s interesting”: “Affleck and Cole Hauser.” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
Chapter 10: If You Don’t Like Your Character, Change It
�
��Dad was probably a high school football player”: “Character interviews: Randall ‘Pink’ Floyd.” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
“He probably fears his old man”: “Character Interviews: Fred O’Bannion,” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
“it was very, very difficult and scary to live with him”: Amy Spencer, “Ben Affleck Talks Raising Kids with His Ex, Facing His Demons, and Tackling His Most Personal Movie Role Yet,” Parade, February 28, 2020.
“His father’s probably a drunk”: “Character interviews: Benny O’Donnell,” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
Chapter 11: The New Kid Versus the Old Guard
“They’ve determined to do their little jobs all the better and tighten their belts”: Linklater, “Dazed by Days.”
“By the time we’re in production, we’re at war”: Ibid.
Chapter 12: We Were All Hormonal
“weird hair”: Nathan Heller, “Why Richard Linklater Makes Movies,” New Yorker, June 23, 2014.
Chapter 15: Anyone Who Had a Cell Phone Was Instantly an Asshole
“Our ridiculous schedule means”: Linklater, “Dazed by Days.”
“Whether this is an okay movie or a great movie”: “Making Dazed.” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
Chapter 19: Dumb and Horny and Mean and Drunk
“You know what’s really terrible”: “Cast and director interviews: Wiley Wiggins and Catherine Morris.” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
Chapter 21: She Called You a Bitch and You a Slut
“And then the scene with the girls”: “Behind the scenes interviews: The girls.” Dazed and Confused, Disc 2.
Chapter 24: Shawn and Milla Self-Destruct
“It sucks—they’re totally exploiting my image”: “Fazed and Misused,” Vox (UK), October, 1994.
Chapter 29: Seduced and Abandoned
“Not one person in the entire”: William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1989).
Chapter 30: I Was Alive, and I Wasn’t Afraid
“I know everyone thinks I’m the snotnose”: Linklater, “Dazed by Days.”
Chapter 32: Wading into the Shark Waters
“The independent film world in the early nineties”: Parker Posey, You’re on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2017).
Chapter 34: Dazed and Confused: The Series
“Omigod, I’m contributing to this”: Richard Linklater, “‘Dazed’ on the Publicity Trail,” Austin American-Statesman, September 24, 1993.
“The young playwright Justin Tanner”: Richard Stayron,” Theater Review: Twisted, Funny Visions of Reality in ‘Pot Mom,’” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1994.
Index
The pagination of this digital edition does not match the print edition from which the index was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
abuse, hazing as, 19, 22–23
Adair, Sandra, 282, 290, 307, 379, 413
Adams, Joey Lauren, 11, 15, 82, 87, 117, 119, 123–24, 137, 137, 142–43, 145–46, 185–86, 192–93, 196, 198, 234, 240, 242, 360, 406–7, 413
on “air raid” scene, 175–77
casting of, 92–94, 97
Cochrane and, relationship with, 161–62
on end of filming, 271, 273
in Mallrats, 367–70
Posey and, friendship with, 169–79, 234–36, 370–71
post-Dazed career, 357, 367–70
Aerosmith, 31, 300
Affleck, Ben, 10, 15, 68, 117, 121–22, 126, 132, 137, 140, 143, 145–46, 150, 152–54, 160, 164, 166, 183, 193, 196, 200, 257, 300, 327–28, 361–62, 375–76, 383, 396, 409–11, 413
alleged physical abuse of cast member by, 209–11
on bully roles, 202–11
casting of, 87–88, 93–94
Good Will Hunting, 372–73
on legacy of Dazed and Confused, 13
post-Dazed career, 358, 364, 368, 371–76
Smith and, 371–72
Wiggins on, 203–4
alcohol use, in high school, 31–33
“Alright, alright, alright,” as improvised line, 226–29
American Graffiti, 127
Anderson, Wes, 42, 58
Andrews, Shawn, 119, 131, 145, 180, 180–87, 194, 259–63, 413
exit from film, 263
Jovovich and, relationship with, 157–58, 261–62
Linklater, R., on, 181–84, 187, 262–63
Angels in the Outfield, 366
anniversary screenings. See 10th anniversary screening and reunion
L’Argent, 49
Arnold, Gary, 63–64
Arquette, David, 96
As the World Turns, 173
Austin, Texas
artistic community in, 41–44
economic collapse in, 52
film community in, 47–50
Linklater, R., move to, 41
moon towers in, history of, 253
in 1980s, 41–42
in popular culture, 42
Slacker and, 50–53
Austin Chronicle, 54
Azoff, Irving, 84, 311
Barr, Autumn, 220–21, 413
Barton, Chris, 74, 127, 185
Baumgarten, Marjorie, 56, 325, 332–34, 337
Before Sunrise, 286, 357, 367
Bergen, Candice, 83
Berkley, Elizabeth, 90
Berman, Burt, 311–12
Besson, Luc, 62
Bindler, S. R., 101–2, 107–9, 245–48
Biskind, Peter, 60
Black, Jean, 134–35
Black, Louis, 53–54, 76, 78, 132, 337, 381
Boyhood, 24, 35
Brakey, Robert, 68–69, 103, 228–29, 257, 282–83, 287–90, 386, 413
Brazill, Mark, 390
The Breakfast Club, 81, 314
Bruna, Lisa, 83, 87, 89–90, 158, 365, 413
Burkhart, Jonathan, 44, 131–32, 144, 149, 156–57, 190, 209, 255, 379, 413
Cameron, John, 64, 152–53, 182–83, 192, 250, 258, 265, 413
car culture, in high school, 11
in Dazed and Confused, 130–32
Carlson, Peter, 352–54
casting, for Dazed and Confused, 81–97
of Adams, 92–94, 97
of Affleck, 87–88, 93–94
cast Polaroids, 350
of Cochrane, 87–88, 92, 96–97, 138
of Goldberg, 87, 92, 97
of Jovovich, 259–60
of London, 88–90, 93–94
of McConaughey, M., 104–7
by Phillips, 81–84, 89, 92–96, 138, 182–83
by Walker-McBay, A., 81–82
Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids (Macor), 73
Chapman, Mark David, 51
character development, 139–46
for Affleck, 140
for Hauser, C., 140
for London, 140
Chasing Amy, 367
Chinich, Mike, 83
Clements, Jay, 19, 30, 345, 347–48, 352
Clinton, Bill, 314, 324
Cochrane, Rory, 12, 109, 111, 116, 119, 120, 121, 128, 183, 187, 195–96, 198–201, 199, 205, 261, 315–16, 324–25, 366, 383, 386, 404, 413
Adams and, relationship with, 161–62
casting of, 87–88, 92, 96–97, 138
on end of filming, 271–72
post-Dazed career, 361, 375–76
“Conspiracy A-Go-Go,” in Slacker, 51
Cooper, Alice, 301
Cooperman, Kahane (nee Corn), 15–16, 61, 63, 126, 276, 410, 414
on end of filming, 273, 276–77
relationship with Linklater, R., 166–67, 277
Corn, Kahane. See Cooperman, Kahane
costuming
for McConaughey, 134–35
for 1970s film setting, 132–36
Coupland, Douglas, 52, 56
cruising culture, 11
Damon, Matt, 371–372
D
anes, Claire, 89–90, 96
Daniel, Bill, 11, 53, 74, 79, 380–81
Daniel, Lee, 46, 49, 77, 130, 272–73, 357, 379–80, 414
as director of photography, on Dazed, 73, 77, 150–52
Slacker and, 42
Daniel, Sean, 61, 65, 70–71, 191–92, 215–16, 312, 334–36, 389, 414
letter of apology to, from Linklater, R., 335–36
on soundtrack choices, 304–5
Davis, Brett, 18, 24–25, 27, 31, 39
Davis, Tamra, 120
Dazed and Confused. See also specific topics
American Graffiti as reference for, 68
as anti-nostalgia film, 403–11
black characters in, lack of, 27–29
car culture in, as character element, 130–32
casting for, 81–97, 138, 182–83
character development in, 139–46
as cult film, 382–87
defamation lawsuits as result of, 342, 353
director of photography issues, 73, 77, 150–52
ending of, 264–77
female cast members in, personal relationships among, 169–79, 231–43
film sequel to, development of, 390–93
hotel lodging during, 116–22
marijuana use and, 118–19, 196–197, 255–256, 314–19
moon tower in, 32–33, 252–58
night shoots for, 194–98
as 1970s period film, 13, 123–38, 244–45
oppression as theme in, 14–16
Phillips as casting director, 81–84, 89, 92–96
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